


A Dash of Gold

by Ketchrey



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Chonut, F/F, Found Family, Gen, Happiness & healthy relationships, Kimbalina implied, M/M, Tuckington - Freeform, Tuckington is ch.2, Wash adapting to life with Junior, holiday theme, rvb secret santa 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:13:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28295862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ketchrey/pseuds/Ketchrey
Summary: Post-War Chorus is celebrating the end of the year. A quiet window between the holidays, Donut baking for a party the next day, getting Church and Caboose into the season. This also marks Wash’s first trial run at parenting his boyfriend’s son.My Secret Santa gift to gdipalomo!! I tried to check off as many boxes as I could. (This is pretty Blue-Team centric, with Donut who cares not for the labels;)—Your artwork is gorgeous btw!! Merry Boxing Day friend!!!❤️💙❤️💙
Relationships: Agent Carolina & AI Program Epsilon | Leonard Church, Agent Carolina/Vanessa Kimball, Franklin Delano Donut & Agent Washington, Lavernius Tucker/Agent Washington, Leonard L. Church | AI Program Alpha/Franklin Delano Donut
Kudos: 8





	1. Chapter 1

The street rows are crowded and colored in excess. Chorus Gold, Greens and oranges striking out along the buildings lining every block. Street lamps have strands of gilded garland, budding citrus blossoms and lemon globes. The Republican Nation had their end of year festival, recognition of their resilience and maturity boldly cast about in celebration and song. Street carnivals filling up the vender slots in every direction one could look.

People are partying in their homes and in the bars wound along the city’s more eclectic troves. Vocal acoustics and percussion coming from a park hosting live music for the fourth night in a row.

“Everything’s so dazzling!” Donut croons, acquainting compliments to each decorative piece they pass on the block.   


_Do these people not sleep?_ The unkind thought crosses Epsilon’s mind. 

Heading off their pack Carolina leads along the cobble roads. In the tail end of evening little but the bars and eateries have remained open on holiday hours. She guides them into a corner store, the others rag-tagging along behind like a school of fish. Nose to the scent, her freshly made up face and glam garnet red gown swishing around her mid-calf. Matching red lips pinch as she spies out the alcohol display. 

The attendee stares, eye glued to Carolina at first, but then Wash steals the floor with his haggard eyes and kitten-themed pyjama bottoms. Donut one-arms himself against Wash’s waist, beaming that disarmingly strawberry-raspberry-rose smile to the observing attendee, nodding a cheerful. ‘Seasons’ Greetings!’ Well sedated, Wash allows himself to be leaned on and steered like this back towards the liquor display.

“Cherry Clove.” Carolina’s listless tone, interrupts Epsilon’s From his attention of Donut and Washington. “I don’t think I like seeing the specks and particles...floating around.”

“Would this vintage be for any special lady?” He baits her playfully.

“For the party I’m bailing out of.” She winces, faint but unmistakable. “Sarge doesn’t know yet that I’ve rejected their invitation.”

“If this is guilty-gifting then when is _my_ present due to arrive?”

Carolina slides the fridge door shut, swirling a bottle to catch the ingredient on its label.

“She wouldn’t even know I was with you.”

“Counting on you to _remain_ dormant would be the true idiot’s gamble, Church.” Carolina mutters, drawing the feigned sweetness out through clamped teeth. “Donut already changed his plans to accommodate you and Caboose. It’ll be just the one night, and you should count your blessings. He’s excited to be your host.”

Kimball had not received a day off in months, and the toll it had been taking... Obviously the minute she had found an evening to kill Carolina would be dumping him off into the nearest sitter available that night. 

Donut’s eyes bat steadily while reads the aisle signs to himself. He has a mini shopping cart, lined with colored beverages and the few items of produce he required for tomorrow. Nudging the cart gently so as to not to overturn the ombre gin, magenta and violet coalescing and bright. A bag of limes and ice trays shaped like dinosaurs sit towards the back of his haul. 

Still looking as though there was anywhere he would rather be, Wash adds on a non-alcoholic drink to Donut’s cart. “For those of us on prescription drugs.” He clarifies, head shying towards the floor. Subtly non-subtle he reverts back to his drifter’s stance, but does not actually leave Donut’s side, as expected. Keeping near, he appears to build himself up before bravely exposing the paper bound object in his hands. 

“What do you think of this?” He weighs hopefully.

Portraying his interest Donut takes an appraising eyes to the puzzle book.

“A bad choice?” Wash affirms, deflating in failure.

“I just don’t know if it’s age appropriate.” Donut softens, squeezing above his elbow encouragingly. “Try thinking of bold colors. Toys are trinkets with possibilities that can go on and on. We’ll find something in with the party games.”

“These _were_ in the party games.” Wash says in distress. It shortens his gravitas to the tone that makes dogs swivel their heads.

“Family Man of the year here he comes...” Epsilon snorts.

Carolina makes an appalled noise in her neck.

“Oh come on, he’s the one who bailed on the eve of a holiday. Apple doesn’t fall far from the Freelancer huh? You know you could drop me off with Tucker instead, I’m sure he’s got plenty of material to bitch with me about our deadbeats—“

“Epsilon you are literally in favour of date crashing on somebody rather than going to your friend’s party.” Carolina rips him down abruptly. “So _who_ would be the apple?“

It should not stump him as well as it does. Carolina slaps the slider door closed, choking the neck of a ruby mulled choice of Sangria. She glances between the checkout and the aisles the rest of their group had split up to scout through. From the angle of it, Donut had dragged Wash off into the pre-baked racks and their platters, colours of Chorus gleefully whipped through the heavily frosted cakes. She halts, one moment confusing him as she pivots and then struts them both forward into the corn starch laden row.

“Have a nice night little brother. Cheer up for their sake.” Carolina begs under her breath. “Donut? I best be going.”

“Of course!” Freeing his hands he sits a tin of cookies back on their shelf. “Just FYI, I am just a little out of practice. Do I need to be slicked up before we fit him in?”

“Oh I think you’ll find him very flexible.” She grins, exaggerating sadism as she disconnects Epsilon from her cerebral port. “You boys will have to excuse me. I’ve got a date with the president.”


	2. Chapter 2

The fourteenth floor penthouse is where everyone else steps off the lift. Donut, having collect Caboose now shepherds him out, with Epsilon twittering unhappily above his head. They crowd out into the posh eggshell hallway, an accent table placed off centre from the lobby has a citrus tree strung in festive lights. Jade greens and a brandished amber flickering in ambience. The yearning to hit the arrows and hold the doors apart for just a minute longer is nearly overpowering.

He holds out on as the door chimes its musical ‘ _ding_ ’ beginning to slide shut. Donut swivels around and sends him a final thumbs up between the final few inches closing.

The elevator gives a lurch, floor numbers tallying away the rest of his courage.

‘ _Fifteen_.’

The bag’s handles scrunch in his grip. He bullies himself out into a similar mirror of the last floor’s hallway. Carolina’s sweet is the only other on the floor, as far along the West end as was physically possible from his and Tucker’s. Breezing fast he passes the penthouse floor’s citrus table. Orange, gold, and green solar string lights dangle across the window frames, shaking from the wind outside.

The blizzard churns with his nerves as the hall comes to an end. Their doorway, decorated with assorted tinsel and streamers but of the wrong planet’s colors. Above the peep-hole Junior’s Sangheili coat of arms glued together out of uncooked coloured noodles, hangs proudly.

He fits his keycard in the slot, softly propping the door aside with his body. That the main room is empty means nothing. His chest only deflates when he leans into the kitchenette and ascertains the table placements have been cleared. No alien child in sight, he releases his chest.

Toy figurines litter across the carpets between rooms. A dinosaur scuffs his foot and disappears under the couch.

He reacts as it could be a living _breathing_ animal he has bunted below the couch.

“Shit, _shit_.”

The atmospheric lights can’t reach far enough under for him to find the toy’s outline. Setting down his bag Wash folds in half without thinking it through twice. Reaching blindly into the dark, feeling nothing akin to the dinosaur’s shape. His hand feels around the odd lumps and carpet bumps. Something cold that was hopefully old pizza grazes his fingers. Either way he jerks back sharply, and jumps even harder at the pair of legs now standing in his peripheral vision.

“Shit!”

“Take it down a notch, dude.” Tucker scolds, clearly fresh out of the shower. The soap suds scooped within the dish of his sternum and through the hair stamping the towel behind his neck. Adjusting the fuzzy blue body towel hugging his hips, he tries to follow after Wash’s line of sight. “Did the couch eat your pager or something?”

Shame clamps down his throat like a corkscrew, the explanation stopped short.

“Wash.” Something in his voice shifts lower. “I thought you were going to be hanging downstairs with the guys?”

He begins to frown when Wash doesn’t answer, eyes gently treating him with cautious hands. He gathers the towel around his hips, knees bowing to settle with Wash on the carpet.

“Junior’s gone to bed.”

The corkscrew whittles just enough to let out a wheeze.

“I know this isn’t what we’re used to. I’ve been orbiting around my kid these past few days—”

“The _toy_.” Wash blurts, the metaphoric cork bursting. “The green dinosaur. I kicked it under the couch. It’s gone.”

Objectively peering through of his sodden hair, Tucker searches along the couch’s ledge. This is where he finds the crumpled bag Wash has at his knees.

“You’ve been shopping?” His brow puckers in interest, dragging the discarded bag toward his lap, under his breath murmuring ‘you hate shopping, what was so important that’, Tucker’s breath cuts. ... “Wash, as a fellow liberal dude I still prefer to order all of our fun stuff online. Describe this trip to me please. Your face, was is pomegranate or a total tomato flush?”

“My face—” Wash swivels sharply, sighting the promotion pressed on the side of the bag he had no more than skimmed at up until now.

Ginger Ross’ Tack Shop.

“Donut.” He blurts. “The bag belongs to Donut, I just borrowed it to carry everything.”

“But you went inside other stores toting this bag?” Tucker twirling the bag about in glee.

A pocket of heat rushes up his neck, warping him both of the shades red Tucker had in mind. “I had to do more research on the Sangheili New Year. Most of the literature went over my head.”

“Junior’s no true stickler for the customs, Wash. We do it the seven day way, without itinerary. It’s basically the just...” He tampers himself off, rendered silent. In his hand he lifts out an entire bulk bag of candy, hard coats clinking together when he sets them on the floor.

“Only the department store and mini marts were open.” Wash admits apologetically. “They had no purple gummies. I had to buy the grape bubble gum.”

Tucker spreads out the hand selected yellows, shamrock and emerald greens, and the desperate blend of blues. 

“The only cakes and cookies they had were painted for Chorus’s coat of arms, obviously. I should have thought of it ahead...”

“Sangheili flag colors.” Tucker pieces it together, quiet with feelings. “These are pop rocks—What else have you got in here?”

Running out of his defences, Wash rests waiting for the object lining the bottom of the bag to be understood or rebuked. Tucker’s face is unreadably slack as he draws the nerf sword from the bag. With his seniority, he carves out an arc with the foam blade, air whooshing over their heads.

“It’s cheap. If he doesn’t want it I’d get something—“

“Wash, you’ve shot pretty dang far from cheap.” Tucker folds the sword across his towelled lap, handling with more care than it requires. “This is gold, babe.”

The affect is lost on him, for a moment the pit of snakes continue to writhe and rouse his stomach. “I am trying.” His protest skitters dead flat an the combative look his lover shows.

“Yeah you are, and it’s fucking good. You are made of fucking gold. My kid thinks you’re cooler than me and it’s barely been half of a week.”

“That wasn’t my intent either, I though I should give you guys space—“

“By running out. So that’s what that was?” Tucker’s sad scowl becomes stern. Discouragingly he dispatches the sword into Wash’s held open palms. “I’m going to put on some underwear. You... We’re going to discuss this.”

Wash’s jaw drops, grappling for an argument where there is none.

Tucker crawls forward by only a slightly half on his torso, leaning to peck a kiss on Wash’s lips. Drifting back with the candy bags scooped in one of his first, his other hand taking longer to relinquishing Wash’s chin. He stands, sauntering in his natural gait out to the hall, shoulder arcs dewy.

 _It will only take a minute,_ Wash coaxes himself, jumbling the sword with him as he rocks up on his feet. _You’ll be in and you’ll get out..._

Junior’s bedroom door is open just a crack, the hallway entering in a crooked beam across the floor. Wash ascends through the gap. Keeping his breaths soft he ambled blindly. Every step taken with caution he crosses the floor, striking off relief as he makes it to the bedside without incident. Hidden just below sight from the bed he nestles the nerf sword on the floor for Junior to discover when he jumped out of bed in the morning.

“Dad?”

Wash’s flat pulse ramps from level into full throttle panic in a single beat. His lungs convulse threatening to seize, belting out a choked noise. Bordering on frantic he lurches into a backpedal, falling into a sit on his knees.

Junior has pulled himself upright, most of his scales shadowed onyx in the dark. The hallway light beams forward into his eyes though, reflecting the alien bio-fleck luminance in bronze and flaxen gold. The light dancing on his mandibles, glinting sharp.

‘He lands heavily on his father’s side’ Tucker had been his informant, prefacing even before the beginning ventures of their intimate relationship. 

“No. Not dad. Wash.”

Junior quirks with his broad neck, angled groggily as if to articulate, Uh yeah, I had noticed...

“I didn’t mean to wake—” Like a cataclysmic idiot, he realizes error. Taking a beat, he revises his apology in Sangheili tongue. ‘If I scared you, I am so sorry.’

‘You’re not scary.’ Junior rejects the notion, visibly struggling for a minute before he can respond in English. “Dad told me you we going to be spending tonight with your friends.”

Guilt takes a fist tight in Washington’s gut. “Is it all right that I’ve come back?”

Junior’s beaked muzzle, profoundly reptilian but still exuding the baleful fascination that was attributed to any human child. Compelled by the moment, Wash takes his leap without looking back.

“Is that all right with you?” He recomposes the question, as clear of complication as it could be made. “Are you... How are you, with all of this?”

Warm honey hues bask from Junior’s gaze. A thirteen years old cold-blood, who could have compiled plenty of reasons justify a desire to have Tucker all to himself, was looking up at Wash as though he’s the one horribly confused.

“If I get in the way, you know you can say something about that to us?” Wash clears his throat, awkwardly. “The two of you have this bond, I don’t want to change any part of that.”

Junior interrupts in a break of his rant. “I’m not worried about things changing, Wash.”

“Oh.” It feels like a release. “Well that’s... that’s very big of you.” Donut had been adamantly struggling to communicate it to him, but here it was actualized by a child of the Galactic Embassy. ... “In your custom, they don’t exchange gifts do they?”

“We don’t.” There is a hungry glint in his eyes though. “But _I_ like gifts.”

Junior had crawled forward to the edge of the bed by the time Wash has retrieved the toy sword, muscling over the negative tone screaming at him all the scenarios where this goes horribly wrong. Gold eyes wide open to determine the slender shape from the bedroom’s shadows. Junior secures his talons around the sponge hilt, cradling the blade into his lap.

“It’s the same as my dad’s.” He exclaims in awe.

Surprising himself by the ease of it, he chuckles. “Probably less lethal. I guess I wasn’t thinking, but your dad should have one of these too. That way you guys can practice together.”

“One for you too.” Junior’s mandibles flex apart in a beaming grin. “We can’t leave you out.”

Wash feels the world leave him behind briefly, his air turned loose and lofty. “That would be fun, Junior.”

Coaxing Junior to bed takes effort. It is late enough that he relents after Wash permits him to keep the nerf sword at arms length with him. At least there was no fear of him sustaining injuries. Recalling the fraction of light spreading through the door, he backs out of the room, leaving the door propped. Checking one last time to ensure the kid was laying down, smiling hard he nearly runs down Tucker, pressed to the wall outside.

Overlooking Wash’s jolt and fumbling recovery, Tucker tips his head, jaw crunching on a wade of hard candy.

“Told you so.”

Pulse is still racing wildly, Wash reclaims enough of his voice to chuckle, breathless and astounded as Tucker brushes up on his chest. 

“A parent knows if their kid’s faking sleep.” Tucker’s sight leers beyond Wash’s shoulder, gauging the slitted doorway wearily. “Which he is most _definitely,_ doing. If he’s anything like his old man, that sword’s going to keep him up all night.”

“I should have waited until morning...” Wash’s context veers, swapping speculations as Tucker insistently crowding against him. “Did you apply lipstick?”

“Pop rocks. Iceberg blue babe.” Tucker’s kiss is thorough, caressing fresh sweetness over Wash’s tongue.

“What _is_ that?” Wash frowns, failing to suss out the flavour from Tucker’s mouth.

“Sort of like a vanilla mint, was what I got.” Tucker slings his arms lower on Wash’s hips, gathering them chest to chest. “Need me to show you again?”


	3. Chapter 3

“The furniture is moving again.” Caboose chastens at the ceiling above Donut’s flat. The exertions and groans permeating faintly through the ceiling plaster, could have been left ignored... “Wash and Tucker really need to make up their minds on a floor plan...”

Epsilon shudders at the vile imagery sliding through his head. For two men with a child, one would have hoped they’d teach themselves to be more discreet.

“I blame you for this.” He lobes into the void of Donut’s dock. Sharing the quarters of a fastidious host, has turned out to be quite the modern luxury, though Epsilon didn’t dare to express any such thing.

“This is Wash’s triumph.” Donut smiles while discrediting himself. “His alone, and it’s been a long time coming...”

 _Still_ coming, if those grotesque noises from above could communicating anything... Tucker had to know whose roof he had planned to be under tonight.

_That son of a bitch._

“Caboose I am begging you buddy, turn the volume up? It’s the green arrow.”

“The Christmas tree?” He hovers his finger over the button, waiting on confirmation. Enough life lessons have taught him to consult a higher authority before activating any similarly crafted button.

“What are you even watching?”

“It is Robert Redford!” Donut objects, raising his offence. “A classically mid-Western man, and there’s baseball. Don’t knock it, Church, your celebrity crush was on the credit reel. Weren’t you even paying attention to the first few innings?”

“ _Alpha’s_ celebrity crush. That entire role serviced more to the credit of a cameo, if you’re arguing that. Off screen deaths are always crap, I mean I can’t—just, what a way to do Mr. Blonde...”

Through the steam rising out of a large wine red crockpot he has a clouded view of the side of Donut’s eyes, fluttering fast in admonish.

“The Holiday has been cycling through the networks. That’s one is cute enough.” Donut recommends, rhythmically dice chopping through mushrooms. The vegetables varied between bright as yew berries to the tinted yellow of lemongrass, and fell closer on the genetic scale to walnuts in design and texture, but softened from boiled water tasted identically to Earth’s edible fungi.

Chef smacking his mouth tips around a tablespoon, Donut frowns peculiarly. “Does this need something more?” He addresses in regards to the sweltering chilli.

Epsilon blunders. “Am I supposed to answer that?”

“Aren’t you like, hyper-sensitive to the molecular components of things. There are a ton of cellular component in play in here. With tastes and fragrances, and you can essentially isolate all of them?”

Determined not to allow his astonishment to show, Church gives off a non-committal pop of static that is all Donut requires.

“Come over here, slip into my nostalgic buds.”

“That’s not...wow.” Epsilon stutters to find the words. “I don’t kid myself thinking that I’m ever gonna be that type of A.I. I submerge in methods that have been...almost always volatile to the host. My splinters left inside your head could prove to be damaging in the long run.”

“My head has seen a fair deal of punishment, Church. Don’t be kidding yourself, this one is not a perfect Roman marble head. I am both flattered and resentful that you would constrict me to one!”

...“I’m saying, some things just aren’t worth pushing it.”

“Carolina didn’t see anything wrong about us joining—”

“She’s always been overconfident with me.”

The firewalls are all intact, but as superficial barriers only. Donut respects them still, giving in to the silence as he converts attentions to a casserole dish that’s timed to be removed from the oven. The pecans and oats sautéed through in an amber browned sweet sauce, emanates in devastatingly thick sweep of the room.

“I always have a few bites from the corners before serving them out as squares.” Donut admits, guiltlessly dipping his finger through a drizzle of sugars. ... “If you round out the edges no one call tell the difference.”

“You should put that someplace high up, in case somebody else has the same idea.” Epsilon says, glancing preemptively over to floor across from the television screen.

The picture glare and atmospheric lights had certainly gotten to Caboose. During the films third game montage he had succumbed. Slouched half off of the couch and his bottom to the floor, Caboose snores gently, like a great moose blissed out to the smells of chilli powder and red beans, garlic cloves simmering from a skillet on the stove top. The watt of aromas had not disturbed him out of his deep sleep, if not merged him into an even headier depth.

Donut hums in agreement, sucking glaze where it had stuck on the side of his hand. “Real talk though, I’m seriously worried about Grif breaking in before breakfast. I will have to go to sleep at some point...”

“I can cover the watch.”

It is through Donut’s frame of awareness, his absurd abnormal storm-cloud eyes, fond and blue. “Awww, _Church_.”

_Damn you Carolina._

“Wash handles things a lot like you do.”

Epsilon lets himself go, midway between a chemical implosion or dimensional spasm. “Wash is Wash is laying down a foundation. He’s doing acrobatics and stunts so out of my league...”

His primary instincts were to scramble out of the way, arriving too late he lands fatally with the powerful spear of those bluebell framed drowning traps.

“I suppose you wouldn’t believe it if I told you Simmons has been in charge of taking rsvps for our event. Do you know he’s been troubleshooting his personal computer for a week because he worries he never sent yours. Or didn’t sent it correctly.”

The invite had found him through Carolina’s access port, fonts and sticker prints preserved through its travels. Although up until this moment he had believed it meant for a backup to the physical copy mailed out for Carolina’s behalf.

“I wouldn’t have thought that of Simmons,”

“Grif too.” Donut talks above him brightly. “Yesterday he spend the greater part of afternoon hooking up our cable stations ahead of time. There were many an awful hissy fits, and he ate through my pistachio shortbread cookies like they were just the pistachios. Once he had himself consoled I had to bake a whole new batch...”

“ _Why?_ ”

“Because our children require constant access to entertainment.” Donut gestures in case of point down to the floor, or wherever Caboose had slouched out of sight in his sleep. “Because he knew that you would be the first one to dedicated all your focus and energy into hooking it up properly on the day of, thereby miss out on the actual party. We had to take action.”

Where a graft had been left for a time before, Epsilon feels the odd, not so unpleasant sensation of fissures beginning to pull snug.

“Sarge has been really drilling into us the criticality of unitized squadrons, which in Sarge speak, translates to the Patriarch desire of bring us all home together for the holidays. But the message isn’t lost. We need to stick together. Owing each other nothing we are still friends. All of us.”

“That is a pretty loose translation of what Sarge represents to our group.” Epsilon brackets, although his readout would betray this snark.

“All of us together.” Donut permits, leaving it impossible to be misconstrued. “Unapologetically. Blissfully. _Together_. If it isn’t our holiday, if it’s not our home, so what? We’ve got what this is, and he’s good with that. We’re good with that.”

A snarky part of him wishes powerfully to poke at this. To pick apart Donut’s campy motivational speech without pulling any of his punches. Accept, goddammit, it _resonates_.

Because come morning there would be the rebounding maelstroms. Sarge was still going to chew out Carolina when she arrived late to dinner. Simmons would be corralling Grif away from every edge of the table where the meal was spread. Tucker. Tucker with his whole dysfunctional family, with lips predictably swelled from God knows what those sounds through the floors were connected to...

Forty-odd minutes into the next movie, Jude Law walks into the frame, Donut’s already steam heavy eyes take a break from manning the stove top to ogle from the couch. Epsilon is taking glances back at the pot, spotting out for bubbles in the chilli. Donut is drifting though, and it ends up being he who interferes after the timer dings. 

A duty he absorbs where it won’t be squinted at.

_You want it just as much as they do._

“They’d burn the place down to the ground...” He rants under the tv audio and Caboose’s engine quality snoring. Dialling back the heat to rest the chilli at a slow simmer.

_You know you’ve got it._

Epsilon believes this to be his own inner voice for a moment, but then a honey bright warmth showers down on him, tens of tons the heft of what he alone could muster himself. Cushioning him within the hollow dock, it is shocking that Donut would have this impulse, mid-sleep to stretch out and lend comfort...Grounded and gentle.

“Okay, whatever Frank.” He relents into the private room heady of food for tomorrow. “Maybe we _can_ try one those squares.”


End file.
